FIRST CENTURY OF DAIRYING IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 



very best milking families, and their descendants proved valuable for 

 dairy purposes. By crossing them in various ways with the Ayrshires, 

 Longhorns, Alderneys, dun-colored polls, and other breeds, including 

 blacks ,br\o\vns, magpies, and brindles which were to be had in large 

 numbers at one stage in the history of this colony, tflie settlers had 

 at one time or other the nucleus of probably a score of valuable breeds 

 of dairy cattle if they had been intelligently managed for a -few de*- 

 cades. 



By breeds we understand, of course, such varieties as were originally 

 produced by a cross or mixture, and subsequently established by 

 selecting for breeding purposes only the best specimens and rejecting 

 the rest. In time deviations become less frequent, and greater uni- 

 formity is secured ; but a tendency remains greater or less in propor- 

 tion to the time which elapses and the skill employed in selection, to 

 resolve itself into its original elements, to breed back towards one 

 or other of the kinds of which it was first composed. Thus in time 

 a new race is formed. 



Whenever any man of advanced ideas has attempted to establish a 

 new breed of cattle, such as Mr. Walker, of Tenterfield station, he 

 has invariably attempted to do too much in the time. The practice 

 of close breeding which must be carried to a great extent at the be- 

 ginning of the experiment should never be saddled with high produc- 

 tion until type is thoroughly established. Both close breeding and 

 high production when established too rapidly undoubtedly eon tribute 

 to the liability of our domesticated animals to hereditary diseases, 

 and when those possessing any such diseases are coupled, the ruin 

 of the stock is easily and quickly effected. 



Notwithstanding the importance of heredity in disease, it is also 

 true that few diseases, in the strict sense, owe their development to 

 accidental causes. Even such as are usually hereditary are sometimes 

 produced accidentally, and in such cases they may or may not be 

 transmitted to their progeny; and we have reason to believe that 

 such accidents can be transmitted. 



With variations it is different. Climate, food, and habit are tin- 

 principal causes of variation in any marked degree under the} control 

 >of man. These in turn are, doubtless, indirectly subservient to other 

 laws, such as reproduction, growth, and inheritance, of which we have 

 a very imperfect knowledge. This is constantly shown in cases of 

 animals that have several young at one birth, the result of a single 

 union with the male. Numberless hypotheses are put forward to ac- 

 count for variation. Darwin says : " The reproductive system is 

 eminently susceptible to change in conditions of li-fe." To this func- 

 tional disturbance in parents he attributed the varying or plastic r<m 

 ditions of the offspring. The male and female sexual elements .seem 

 to be affected both- before and during the time the union takes place. 

 But just exactly why is a question we cannot answer. 



There are, in my opinion, in these various principles many things 

 which are equally fundamental, because they serve as foundations in 

 both the common and scientific order of breeding, and because it is 

 impossible to assign to any one of them an exclusive privilege. It 

 is a prejudice and fatal error to believe ourselves able to prove every- 

 thing connected with cattle breeding by the use of reason; the prin 

 ciples on which reason is founded are prior to its use ; the existence 

 <M reason, and that of being that reasons, are prior to both. 



Taking, then, the systems of breeding cattle as explained in this 

 article, it will be necessary for the student to grasp the life history 

 of some of our best strains of dairy cattle and observe closely which 

 system gives the best results. Mr. Henry Osbornc worked out his 

 plans of breeding by using the best Longhorned Durham, Longhorn. 



204. 



